Month: April 2003

Thinking about posting here while on vacation. But I didn’t have time to buy an (gasp) analog modem for my Vaio U3 (PCMCIA). Ah, visions of the future… I will be going from 100Mbps LAN at home and 128Kbps wireless PHS card to ANAfuckingLOG MODEMS. But that’s the whole purpose. By next month, I will have technology which in combination with my gadgets and black sorcery, will provide me with a tech level I can piss on 99.9999% of the world’s heads from – for at least 5 years. My intention is to give it all up after a year, move to the Thai countryside, and purge my life of EMR for a while. Does it make me sick? Sometimes I feel so. If it allows me to ignore the urge to urinate for eight hours and stare into a pulsing electron gun while exercising only my fingers, it’s probably less than healthy.
Why the HELL am I writing this now? Must pack…

Well, I barely made it through this week. Working with clients that are powerful and inefficient is kind of like driving a jeep – it’s fun once in a while, when you want to do it for the thrill, but if becomes a day in and day out kind of affair, it becomes a chore. Whatever that sad-ass analogy means.
Tired. Tired. Hungry. But tired.
Have to pack. Going to Thailand tomorrow! But must eat. Must sleep. Must wake up at 5:00 AM!?! What the hell kind of vacation is that?

Missed the haircut because i spent a while trying to figure out a way to send Nam an e-mail her brother sent in Thai script. A challenge since Nam only had her phone (au) on her. I took a screen shot in WinXP after formatting the text to cellphone screen size in the OE compose window. Then I optimized in Fireworks and tested the 1.65K gif (and then png) by sending to my phone, also an au (albeit newer and way cooler – it’s got image conversion and editing capabilities and video – more on this later) but the attached files were not viewable. The error message displayed claimed size limitation errors, but I think it had to do with image subformat. Well, that was all a colossal waste of time.
I got a sudden inspiration and just took a pic with my phone after setting typeface of the Thai script to bold for screen legibility. This unbelievably crude hack worked better than I could have imagined. I swore I would never use a camera-equipped phone for taking snapshots (got me a pinhole camera, yes sirree!), but I found an honest to god practical use today. It was like finding out that those tits on the hog actually produce milk. Yippee!
In related news, the other day on our way back to this island (Awajishima), we made a pit stop at a highway rest area. I came out of the john and saw that Nam was waiting for me in front of the impressively lit vending area. She motioned for me to come over and was gesturing toward something on the ground in front of the Asahi vending machine. I jogged over and saw one of the coolest moths I have ever seen! It was shaped and colored just like a gingko leaf! It was so strange looking, I would not have been surprised to find it on the fifth moon of Endor, let alone at a highway rest stop. But there it was. Links are forthcoming, but impossible while my ISP is screwing around with my account. Actually, these smug bastards are in line for a class action suit from the state of Florida, so I better clear my crap off their servers, um, like, soon.

I am going through hell with my new Air”H card. I got it because I’m a bandwidth junkie. I optimized all my comps for 8Mbps ADSL over the course of half a year by reading all possible documentation, and tweaking all components – hardware and soft – only to become suddenly eligible for NTT’S FTTH service. To Be Installed on May 16th. 100Mbps, I welcome you to my world. I will optimize you like I optimized your ADSL forebearers (noise-prone philistines they were!). I will distribute you fairly among my leige-boxes. You are my new champion.

There’s nothing like being stabbed in the back by your ISP… Then again, I guess Ma Bell (NTT West, where I am) could tweak your titties just as sadistically. The dreaded feeling of having NO POWER over the situation as sweetly sickening bile works its way up your throat… Welcome to the land of Royally Screwed, starring YOU! This is how I start this blog, providing a glimpse at its reasons for being. (Well, Smeagol, at least we thinks it can only get better.)